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Fate/Frontier signups!
The time for joining is now! All players for Fate/Frontier, post in here with your character outline so that I know who all is in.
This does NOT mean that anyone who isn't teamed up yet is out of the game. There's still time! Not many of you are left, so here's a recap!
Dalten is offering a depressed-businessman-turned-magus Master!
Llama is offering a sexy world war II fighter pilot as Rider!
Shini has a Servant in, and an idea for a Master whose Servant is their direct ancestor!
BF has a trillion Servants offered and three Masters offered, but hasn't confirmed any teamups yet!
Chris has the biblical Joshua as General, but no confirmed Master for him!
Don't think of the below as a full-on app - I am not going to be approving or rejecting based on thoroughness of content. I trust you guys well enough. Just give me an idea of what you're going for. However, No signup will be accepted for a Master or Servant unless there is also a signup for their Servant or Master. To keep things organized, if your Servant/Master has already posted their signup, post yours as a reply to theirs.
Also important: If you want to really sink your teeth into the world backstory for your Master histories, I've written up an AU history of the Holy Grail War here.
Required for Everyone:
-Name
-Gender
-Approximate apparent age
-Personality
Required for Masters:
-Degree of magical familiy heritage
-Competence as a magus
-Backstory leading up to the Holy Grail War
Required for Servants:
-Class
-Fighting Style
-Attitude towards the Holy Grail War
Bonus points for Servants:
-Noble Phantasm
-Strength, Endurance, Agility, Magical Energy, Luck, and Noble Phantasm ranked from E to A+
-Angst-filled AU historical backstory
This does NOT mean that anyone who isn't teamed up yet is out of the game. There's still time! Not many of you are left, so here's a recap!
Dalten is offering a depressed-businessman-turned-magus Master!
Llama is offering a sexy world war II fighter pilot as Rider!
Shini has a Servant in, and an idea for a Master whose Servant is their direct ancestor!
BF has a trillion Servants offered and three Masters offered, but hasn't confirmed any teamups yet!
Chris has the biblical Joshua as General, but no confirmed Master for him!
Don't think of the below as a full-on app - I am not going to be approving or rejecting based on thoroughness of content. I trust you guys well enough. Just give me an idea of what you're going for. However, No signup will be accepted for a Master or Servant unless there is also a signup for their Servant or Master. To keep things organized, if your Servant/Master has already posted their signup, post yours as a reply to theirs.
Also important: If you want to really sink your teeth into the world backstory for your Master histories, I've written up an AU history of the Holy Grail War here.
Required for Everyone:
-Name
-Gender
-Approximate apparent age
-Personality
Required for Masters:
-Degree of magical familiy heritage
-Competence as a magus
-Backstory leading up to the Holy Grail War
Required for Servants:
-Class
-Fighting Style
-Attitude towards the Holy Grail War
Bonus points for Servants:
-Noble Phantasm
-Strength, Endurance, Agility, Magical Energy, Luck, and Noble Phantasm ranked from E to A+
-Angst-filled AU historical backstory
Master
-Gender: Male
-Age: 32, occasionally looks considerably older
-Personality: Ward seems like your basic hard-boiled private detective: gruff, savvy, wise-cracking, badass as fuck, and iron-willed. His dirty little secret is that he didn't quite get boiled all the way through. He learned a lot of blind, Emiyaesque idealism from his late father, and jaded as he is, he clings to a surprising amount of it deep down, which isn't actually very good for his mental health considering the shit he's seen. He has and will always have a sense of compassion and vulnerability at his core, and it makes being a hard-boiled detective, and a magus at that, very painful at times.
He'd have a drinking problem if this weren't Prohibition. He might still have a drinking problem if speakeasies didn't prefer not to invite detectives inside. He settles for a cigar habit.
-Degree of magical familiy heritage: Fairly respectable but unfamous magus family.
-Competence as a magus: Moderate, very specialized on alchemy and alteration of certain materials.
-Backstory leading up to the Holy Grail War: Ward became estranged from his family in his late teens after his grandfather ratted out his father to the Mage's Association for breaking several secrecy-related laws in order to help townspeople. He did, at least, have time to inherit old dad's magic crest. Inheriting also an abiding optimism that most people are basically decent, he served a short tour of duty towards the end of the Great War and went on to become a police officer in Chicago for about seven years, both occupations in which that sense of optimism took a violent and unruly beating. He moved to Highgate, with its comparably high rate of magical crime, to enforce the law his own way on a more private basis.
He's lived here several years, now, long enough to be pretty protective of the place. He also knows what the Holy Grail War is, and he's not too happy it's coming. Resolving to bring any homicidal Masters to justice personally, Ward is participating in the War with no particular interest in actually winning it.
Servant
Gender: Female
Apparent Age: Mid/late 20s.
Personality: "Beautiful, valiant, generous, and supremely unchaste." She's quick to take offense and quick to forgive. She falls in and out of love and/or lust at the drop of a hat. She has absolutely no sense of shame whatsoever and is a giant showboat. She has a good heart despite her ferocity, and is very protective of anyone she takes a shine to, particularly the ladies.
Class: Saber
Fighting style: Saber is very good at dodging, blocking, and avoiding injury in general. She's a classically trained duelist and specializes in speedy strikes. She prefers to cripple rather than kill, because what's the fun in winning if you can't lord it over an opponent? She'll often try to leave if she's losing rather than fight to the death, and departing at first blood no matter who's on the winning side is not out of the question.
Outlook: Saber views the war as an excellent adventure and a second stab at glory. She died (relatively) young, as many heroes do, and is delighted to be wandering around breaking hearts and breaking noses just like the good old days.
Stats:
Strength C
Endurance B
Agility A
Magical Energy C
Luck A
Noble Phantasm B
Class Skills
Magic Resistance A
Riding B
Noble Phantasm:
Saber was a minor magus in life. Her personal theme is the mouth. Every spell she casts comes from her lips, one way or another.
Tancrede
A compelling contralto melody that clouds the mind of her opponent. Any corresponding stat lower than hers is lowered by two ranks for as long as the song stays in their head.
True Flamberge
By breathing on the hilt of her sword, Saber imbues it with the power of fire. As she fights, the blade becomes hotter and hotter until it can't touch ordinary material (and some extraordinary materials) without causing it to burn or melt.
Heroine's Heart
By kissing someone, Saber can both heal them with a mana transfer (not nearly as effective as the famed mana dragon, but good in a dramatic pinch) and leave a mark on them that allows her to track them down afterwards.
Re: Servant
no subject
Gender: Male
Age: 32
Personality: Grant Ruskin is obnoxiously friendly. He's the kind of person who brings a sixpack of beer to a study session. Everyone has a good time and nothing gets done. He gets in fights but somehow most people don't end up hating him after they fight him. He is lazy and unmotivated, but has tremendous natural talent, which kind of balances out. He is, in short, a bro.
Degree of magical family heritage: They have been magicians for four generations, and are pretty good at it.
Competence as a magus: Lots of natural talent, not much actual studying. So he can do simple magic well, but beyond that he has to do research before attempting anything complicated. His trademark trick is manipulating metal. He has a chunk of Orichalcum, a legendary magic metal from the city of Atlantis that has the property of only being able to be effected by magic, which he uses to make tools or weapons as the situation requires.
He can also drain the mana out of magical artifacts or constructs by touching them, thanks to his crystal heart (see below.)
Backstory leading up to the Holy Grail War: Grant was a member of Clocktower before he died. In general he was too much of a pest and a disruption, so they send him to be an enforcer in the lawless magical frontier of America, partially because his personality made him suited for work in the field but mostly just to get him out of their hair. His official title was "Sheriff".
He was good at his job, and became fairly famous in the magical world, building up a substantial reputation. Then a necromancer got the jump on him and killed him. The Necromancer used his body for an experiment that required the body of a magus, replacing his heart with a special crystal that would maintain his life as long as it was kept charged with mana.
It worked, Grant came back to life and kicked the necromancer's ass. Now he needs to keep charging his "heart" with mana or he will die, which is why he wants the grail.
no subject
Gender: Male
Age: 32
Personality: Brawler is a guy who likes having fun, particularly with other people. Sure, sometimes his idea of a good time with others involves punching the crap out of them, but it's hard to hold that against the guy when he's so chill and friendly about it. And, let's be honest, most people on the receiving end of Brawler's fist had it coming. What he doesn't like is work. He prefers to do things at his own pace and his own way, which is infuriating to anyone who's ever had to try and get him to do something he doesn't want to, why Clocktower sent him off to America, and why it's probably for the best that his Master is himself.
Class: Brawler
Fighting Style: Brawler, unsurprisingly, specializes in hand-to-hand combat. He has a unique style of combat, by which I mean he doesn't really follow any sort of style at all, cruising by on talent and a minimum of study, just as with his magic. Which is, of course, integrated into his fighting style, where he generally uses it to make impromptu brass knuckles, small shields, and a total mockery of anyone stupid enough to try to use a metal weapon against him. Of course, that's not all he can do with it, and with Brawler, the name of the game is flexibility.
Attitude towards the Holy Grail War: He's in it to win it, even if he probably won't technically from his perspective benefit from his Master's second chance at life. I mean, hey, sounds like a fun time, anyway, right?
Noble Phantasm: Orichalcum Knuckles. Not always in the form of Knuckles, of course, but that's a catchy name, so there you have it. Again, legendary magical metal, completely impervious to anything that isn't magical.
A note: That bit up there about getting killed? Yeah, that's what the Throne of Heroes counts as his death. So Brawler has neither a crystal heart nor any foreknowledge of how this Grail War goes.
no subject
no subject
Gender: Female
Approximate apparent age: 16
Personality: Anna is a fairly average teenage girl. She has quite a level head on her shoulders, and is a bit of a bookworm; she prefers reading to the constant gossiping of her classmates. Technically she'd be considered a bit of a rebel, what with her preference to more masculine clothing, but that's about as far as that label goes. She's also incredibly laid-back; it takes a lot to ruffle her feathers, and even then, she's more likely to just brush things off and get past the issue than lash out in anger. This makes her a great voice of reason! She flows easily through life, and all she wants is to help out wherever she can.
Degree of magical familiy heritage: Magic in her family goes back many generations, when their roots were still planted firmly in Europe, but they're nothing noteworthy.
Competence as a magus Moderate. Focuses mostly on alteration, with considerable skill in reinforcement. Her personal element is water.
Backstory leading up to the Holy Grail War: As mentioned, she's your fairly average teenage girl. Her family is just managing to scrape by in the wake of the Great Depression, and so she, as the only child, has to take on whatever work she can get to help her family. It was hard, and over and over again, Anna wished there was more that she could do to help her family out of the slump the entire country was in.
So when the whisperings of the Holy Grail War first began making their way around, she didn't pay much attention to it. But the more she learned, the more she realized that this could be what she was looking for. Her parents, while capable magi themselves, were too focused on keeping the three of them afloat in a world that seemed to be falling apart. But if she could make it into this war, if she could win...
Even without the wish the Grail would grant, the family of the winner of the Holy Grail War would obviously earn great prestige and notoriety in the magical community. It was the best hope they had, so Anna threw herself enthusiastically into her studies.
no subject
Gender: woman tyvm
Approximate Apparent Age: 21
Personality: Lancer is well-educated and extremely dedicated. She does her best to protect what she lives by and who she's with, and she's more than willing to help others become strong as well. She's not exactly rebellious, but she can see when the rules are in the way, and her response to that is, more often than not, "screw the rules". Well, not exactly; she's more of a rules lawyer, saying that just because she can't do this doesn't mean she can't do that and get the same result. She has a backup plan for a lot of things, and if she can't win, she at least wants to make sure the other side can't get what they want.
Class: Lancer
Fighting Style: Lancer gets in there and fights, but she isn't an idiot. She's aware of her surroundings and takes the same approach to a battle as she does to everything else: if she can't do something the normal way, she's going to do it her way. She usually uses her naginata over everything else.
Attitude towards the Holy Grail War: She wants to win, and once she sees her Master's determination, she'll do her best to win.
Noble Phantasm:
Root of Tradition: Her primary and most well-known weapon, her naginata (yamato nadeshiko characters who use them probably have her to thank). She's fast with this thing -- she shanked a bunch of guys who were carrying guns with it, after all.
Thousand Striker: Lancer's secondary weapon is a short sword. She's practiced with the thing all her life and will use it if she feels the need; she can keep on using it as long as she wants to without getting tired.
Promise: If Lancer is mortally wounded while her Master is still alive, as she fades away, a temporary burst of power will go directly to the Master, allowing Anna to escape or open a can or whatever she very well wants to do.
no subject
Servant Avenger
Name: Nyarlathotep, the Crawling Chaos
Gender: Male
Approximate Apparent Age: Anywhere between 25 and 35
Class: Avenger
Fighting Style: Spellcaster (mind-affecting spells and summoned monsters; he doesn't attack directly)
Personality: Nyarlathotep is what's known as an Outer God, an elemental force of the universe outside all human comprehension. However, the single aspect that's been summoned through the Holy Grail ritual - a God-King who ruled Ancient Egypt - does have a distinct personality of its own, if a frightening and subtle one.
As his epithet implies, Nyarlathotep wants chaos, destruction, and entropy, to better hasten the inevitable end of the universe. In the guise of the "Black Pharaoh", he does this by commanding the minds and souls of his lessers. Nyarlathotep has a genius intellect and deep understanding of the physical and magical nature of the universe, considering the Black Pharaoh "lived" thirty centuries ago. He is also charismatic and manipulative, able to charm, fast-talk, and/or bamboozle most people with minimal effort - those who resist him initially inevitably draw his attention and greater effort at breaking down their mental defenses and, eventually, their mind. He has access to magical spells that can do the same thing, but frankly, he'd rather just talk to people and reveal horrible secrets about physics or their own psychiatry until their minds break.
The core of Nyarlathotep's personality, though, is his colossal arrogance. He naturally views human beings - including his Master and the other Servants - as nothing of a higher order than bacteria in a petrie dish, to be manipulated, experimented upon, and played with on a whim, all toward the goal of decay and degeneracy of the entire thinking universe.
Attitude towards the Holy Grail War: Nyarlathotep wants to cause as much chaos as possible, driving humanity to degeneracy and ruin. If he obtains the Holy Grail, he will use its power to simply enslave the minds of everyone on the planet and turn them to the horrifying, self-destructive worship of himself and Azathoth. If he doesn't, he'll just do that on a smaller scale until this avatar is destroyed. Causing people emotional and mental distress is more important to him than actually fighting.
Noble Phantasm: The Thousand Masks (C): Nyarlathotep can shift his form to any humanoid he has personally spoken to since his summoning. This same shapeshifting also allows him to recover from physical damage at a rate commensurate with other Heroic Spirits. His more monstrous forms are sealed by the limitations of the Holy Grail - this is, after all, only one aspect of him.
Screams of Nightmare (A): Nyarlathotep causes nightmares on a nightly basis over a wide area, wearing down peoples' sanity and drawing mana from their distress. This is ineffective against anyone who can recognize magic; it's mainly a mana replenishment source.
Reality Marble - Court of Azathoth (A+): Nyarlathotep creates a personal space in the world linked to the mindless entropy at the center of creation, drawing himself and others into a space beyond the World and Time where they are beset by maddening and destructive beasts beyond mortal description.
Stats: Strength D, Endurance C, Agility C, Magical Energy A+, Luck A, Noble Phantasm A+
Even more bonus!
Class Skills: Divine Rank A
Abilities: Charisma A, Magecraft A
no subject
Gender: Male
Age: 43
Personality: While a pastor, Sterling has become disillusioned with his faith and has since become more or less a nihilist. He can see the value of human lives as minimal, worth less than the amount others are able to trade them for. However, Sterling no longer sees himself as a part of those other humans. Separated from their conflict, he views himself as a spectator prepared to watch the end of the world from the best seat possible. He has grown to accept the voice that speaks to him from the depths of his mind, following its orders just as he had for the rest of his life. Since his disillusionment, Sterling has grown oddly more accepting of everything that happens around him. He dutifully follows the voice, caring little for the consequences to him or to those around him. Even before his change in views, Sterling has enjoyed speaking to others individually and intimately, which hasn't changed much even now. He's surprisingly forward and welcoming to talks even if the subject matter may border on atrocious.
Degree of magical family heritage: Magic hasn't been practiced by Sterling's family for generations. The family name has nearly been completely erased by now.
Competence as a magus: His personal knowledge of magic is minimal, leaving little room for him to prepare spells or rituals without extra time. Overall, he has little competence in terms of his own skills, but he does possess a limited form of precognition. The “voices” in his mind tell him what his best option is, but nothing about the reason.
Backstory leading up to the Holy Grail War: Sterling was born Highgate in a devout family. He was told to believe that if he prayed diligently, then God would speak to him. Even if he's in trouble, as long as he follows His word, God will always provide the proper next steps for him to succeed. He believed this as he had little reason to believe otherwise as a child. He told his parents every now and then after waking up that God has indeed spoken to him. A small, quiet voice continued to speak to him whenever he felt unsafe. And sure enough, he was given the answers he sought. Oddly enough, Sterling picked up an interest in the occult as he grew older.
Studying and mastering in theology, he soon pursued the life of a pastor. Sterling sought to understand his small congregation and spoke with them individually. Many were small investors or local businessmen who consulted him for religious wisdom. With his guidance and advice, businesses started and with their success, owners donated more to the church for his assistance. He became something of a business partner only without the liability of ownership. In time, those same businesses began to fail. Investors lost their money after a period of wide successes. Sterling, however, thanks to the guidance of the quiet voice, was one of the few people who managed to retain some economic stability, although he certainly wasn't anywhere close to wealthy.
Sterling saw others suffer. Few even took their lives, wishing not to bear the pains that may last for decades. The voice saved him, but did not offer the same respite to others. He blamed himself as well as his beliefs. Sterling had no reason to believe now that the answers to life come so easily to anybody. Thinking back on it, a fair amount of the businesses he aided were of the same trade. They were bound to compete with one another for their own gains. And they prayed selfishly for their personal gains. His blames shifted to others' selfishness as well as the resulting unchecked competition that resulted in the suffering of many people.
Sterling believed from then on that God helps nobody. Despite rare moments of good will from humans, in the end, what are they but infinitesimal creatures that struggle for their own sustenance? Not even that. They continue to seek more continuously beyond mere necessities, willing to deprive others of simply those. But in an odd way, his predicament started to become more fascinating. It was as if until now, he was sitting in a spectator seat, watching this struggle unfold around him. His mind distanced himself from the community's woes. But at the same time, that quiet voice that guided him in his life became noticeably louder. Really, this is the first time he had to acknowledge that someone was indeed communicating to him personally. He was about to realize the reason for his birth.
The voice, certainly not one he acknowledges as God anymore, told him of a ritual. The ritual would summon a dark god in response to the miseries of the early century and the coming decades. After all, God has no interest in reacting to the collective folly of mankind. Sterling obeyed as he had since the beginning of his life. He immersed himself further into the occult, giving him at least enough knowledge to carry out the ritual. Sterling would carry out the ritual, planning to summon the Crawling Chaos, Nyarlathotep, as commanded by the Black Pharaoh's spawns.
no subject
Master of Rider
Gender: Male
Age: 29
Personality: Josef Mas wants world peace. He hates the terrible state of the world at the end of the last thirty years or so, the state of his Fatherland especially. Like many of his countrymen, Josef has a strong desire to change things for the better. Rather than getting involved directly in the politics and paramilitary violence gripping Germany, he feels he's risen above it to take a gamble on a solution to everyone's problems - the Holy Grail.
Josef Mas is a suave, charming, and kind person on the surface and, indeed, deep down too. He genuinely wants to help people, and what people often assume is a gentlemanly front is in fact completely honest, despite his profession as a spy. However, as honest as he is about wanting to help people, it is still a mask for the lengths to which he'll go to do that. He's made backroom deals with some very dangerous people in his home country, and is playing a delicate balancing act between his position in the office of Reichspräsident Paul von Hindenburg and his connections to the NSDAP and their occult allies in the Thule Society. He can play the game of intrigue, and play it well, and is not above lying, stealing, murder, or serious property damage for his goal. After all, he's trying to save the world.
Josef is cynical about the state of the planet, which is why he's looking for divine (or close enough) intervention to fix it. This is due to his experiences in childhood and young adulthood, and his political savvy - he anticipates another destructive war within the next five years, either Germany tearing itself to shreds or something rose - unless something drastic happens. Unable to put his faith in the mankind of the present, he manipulated his way into the Grail War as a last resort.
Josef is cultured and an avid reader and viewer of theater, despite his peasant upbringing - being a spy pays well, and he likes to keep his mind sharp with art while he's not on duty. He's also a particular fan of the philosophy of Nietzche, since the idea of a man who goes outside conventional morality for the necessity of improving humanity appeals to him. He's not a big fan of people who misappropriate or misquote him (or any philosopher), which is the one thing his employers do that causes him to get genuinely irritated (he'll freely admit that Wagner was an anti-Semitic bastard, though, they got that one right.) Josef has several vices besides his for-the-greater-good ruthlessness, most notably an addiction to tobacco in the form of cheap cigarettes and alcohol in whatever form he can get it in, though he has a taste for the finer hard liquors specifically.
Backstory: Born in 1901, Josef Mas grew up as a patriotic and hardworking citizen of the German Reich, in the countryside outside the coal mining town of Saarbrücken. His parents brought him up to help around the house, and taught him the basics of magecraft - this is how you fix things around the house, this is how you stop bleeding without a bandage, this is why you shouldn't do this in front of Father Karl, these are the people to avoid should you ever go into the big city...
The first time Josef killed anyone was in 1918. He shot two American soldiers who'd gotten lost in the wrong border town dead with his father's hunting rifle. Josef's father and older brother had both been conscripted to fight in the Great War in 1916, and both died shortly thereafter in separate, nameless battles, leaving Josef to protect his home and his mother. Though no one in Germany was going to prosecute Josef for killing two uniformed enemy soldiers, he and his mother fled to Bavaria anyway, ahead of the armistice and the de facto annexation of his hometown by France.
In Germany's southeast, Josef fell on hard times along with the rest of his country. Suffering the consequences of losing a world war, Germany plunged into poverty and upheaval, which in Bavaria primarily meant violent brown-shirted revolutionaries fighting violent red-shirted revolutionaries. After ensuring his mother was at least reasonably able to protect herself, Josef availed himself of the closest thing to a steady job at the time, running and swapping information between the Weimar Republic's government and one of the revolutionary parties, gaining contacts in each and respect for his (secretly magically-enhanced) information gathering capabilities. His talent, intelligence, and ruthless willingness to do anything for the sake of a mission drew the attention of two distinct parties for whom he worked as a double agent - the office of President von Hindenburg, and the splinter group of mages supporting the right-wing parties called the Thule Society.
The gentlemen of that Society charged the fledgling but worldly mage with a task - to go to America and seek victory in the Holy Grail War, granting them the power to put the whole world under the protection of forward-thinking mages. Josef agreed, though he privately defines "forward-thinking mages" as "myself", and the Society granted him materiel, information, and supplies for the mystical side of the Grail War, most importantly a shard of stone from Rome's original wall, covered in unidentified blood. After that, it was hardly a trick to convince the President's office to send him to investigate a strange convergence of British and American interests in an out-of-the-way town in Maine, and supply him with a few weapons, mundane supplies, a cover identity, and a crate of smuggled brandy. Hey, if you're going to kill people in a foreign country, you might as well break a few more laws while you're at it. Josef thus arrives for the War prepared to fight and answering in theory to two masters, both of whom he's ignoring for his own agenda. And booze. He'd kill himself if he had to fight in a dry country.
Degree of magical family heritage: Below average. Josef's family are magical nobodies, with no Crest to speak of and only a bit of antiquated oral-tradition magical knowledge. He's mostly self-educated.
Competence as a magus: Weak but skilled. He prefers to and indeed has to use magic smarter, not harder. When you lack the magic circuit capacity to do more than give someone the sniffles without using an eight hour ritual, you learn to use magic to support your other strengths, like gun- and knife-fighting. He is also a quick study, able to easily learn or improvise rituals to channel mana over time and make up for his lack of ability to focus it immediately.
Bonus
Element: Blood. Josef is talented at transfiguring and altering blood, and can gain a lot of efficiency in spellcasting by using blood (his own, or others') as the mana storage/transference component. His specialization means that his magic is much weaker at affecting gaseous matter or energy than it is at altering metals or liquids (the more it has in common with blood chemically, the better he can affect it.)
Mana Animal: Hawk.
no subject
Also this is his account.
no subject
Gender: Male
Age: Mid-thirties
Personality: Romulus' mother was the Vestal Virgin Rhea Silvia; his father is unknown. Two possible candidates in mythology for the position are the Roman god of war, Mars, and the Greek hero Hercules.
Yeah, this says quite a bit about Romulus as a person.
Rome's founder very much fits the profile of an "alpha male"; fitting, perhaps, given the fact that he and his brother were suckled by a she-wolf. He is confident, self-assured, and proud- some would say to the point of arrogance. When his twin brother Remus and he quarreled over which hill to build their new city on, Remus ended up dead; it's unknown whether Romulus killed him or the death was an accident, but it set a precedent that followed the warrior prince for the rest of his life. What Romulus wanted, Romulus got; those who stood in his way were obstacles to be destroyed.
Despite his drive to win at any cost, Romulus holds himself to a high code of honor. He despises liars, cheats, backstabbers and schemers, believing whole-heartedly in fair play and victory through honest strength. At first glance this code seems to be at conflict with Romulus' lust for victory, but as Romulus himself will happily state, if you don't achieve victory fair and square how are you supposed to lord it over your defeated enemies? And if you can't lord your victories over your defeated enemies, what's the point of even being alive? After defeating their grand-uncle Amulius, who had usurped the throne from their grandfather, Romulus and Remus were offered the throne of Alba Longa, but rejected it in favor of building an empire on their own. Part of this was their belief that a man should earn glory through his deeds, not his inheritence, but part of it was also just plain ol' arrogance. ("We'll go start our own empire! With blackjack, and hookers! In fact, forget the empire.")
He is fiercely competitive, but not a sore loser; second only to his love of winning is Romulus' love of a worthy opponent. As far as he's concerned, the Holy Grail war is just like any other; a glorious contest of wills between warriors, and one Romulus has no intention of losing.
Class: Rider
Fighting Style: Hits fast and hard, almost entirely oriented around up-close melee attacks. If you're not willing to get your hands dirty, what's the fun in fighting? He's proficient with sword and spear, combining them with a shield that sees use as an offensive weapon more often than not. He will almost certainly "claim" (read: steal) a horse at some point, displaying a high proficiency for mounted combat.
Attitude towards War: See above. In it to win it, baby.
Noble Phantasm: Working on it.
no subject
Boudica / Servant
Gender: Female
Approximate Apparent Age: roughly mid-thirties
Class: Berserker
Fighting Style: Without the Mad Enhancement, she wields a Celtic long sword and uses it in fast, brutal strikes without flare or subtlety. And with her high ride skill, she is fully capable of taking a vehicle and turn it into a dead force of severe blunt trauma to the poor sap who fails to get out of her way.
When the Mad Enhancement is on, she becomes a true monster, screaming like a Bane Sidhe and throwing herself bodily into the fray, striking with her sword and tearing at enemies with her hands and teeth.
In either way, she never backs down from a fight unless commanded to and shows no mercy. If she has a choice of enemies, she goes first for any Roman servants, then to any males second.
Personality: Boudica is a proud and forceful woman who tends to overwhelm others with the force of her personality. She was the Queen of a notoriously boisterous group of people and her tendency to run rough-shod over meeker folks is a reflection of that. However, due to the pain of her life, she has a grim bearing, suppressed grief for the suffering her daughters went through and the barely suppressed bitterness and anger she carries. Boudica does have a protective streak towards young woman and is openly contemptuous of men who abuse their power, she is quite cynical distrusting the generosity of others, expecting a catch.
Attitude towards the Holy Grail War: To her, the Grail War is another battle, a chance to revenge herself on the people who wronged her family and will jump into it gleefully. So intent on fulfilling her sense of revenge that Boudica never truly consider what she would wish for in the war. However, she is extremely protective of Jenny and will naturally act in her best wishes.
Noble Phantasm: Rabbit of Andraste (C): Once before a major battle if she's in her clear mind, Boudica can gather up her skirt, and open it - making a magical rabbit appear. Depending on the rabbit's color and how it runs and where to, Boudica can divine the most likely outcome of the battle. (Obviously mod fiat on what it'd reveal)
Stats: Strength B, Endurance C, Agility C, Mana C, Luck D, Noble Phantasm C
Class Skills: Mad Enhancement B, Riding A (she could've been summoned as a rider)
Abilities: Charisma B
Background: Pretty much as real history, except she and her daughters did commit suicide rather then suffer more humiliation at the hands of Romans (rather then the more likely event she simply fell ill and died).
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Gender: She's a girl.
Approximate Apparent Age: 16
Personality: Jenny is a bit of a cynic and usually only acts friendly to her superiors when she has to. She's not very optimistic ("You think I want to do this?") and most of what she does is something she does because she has to, either because she's been ordered to or because it will help out her family. She's afraid at first to go against the grain or against orders, but she'll eventually get past that.
Degree of magical family heritage: She didn't think there was anything left; Dubois apparently knew more than she did. He, on the other hand, is an heir to an established family.
Competence as a magus: Not very. She hasn't done much training, only studied without thinking she could do anything, until her employer started preparing for the war. Her personal element is fire.
Backstory: Jenny comes from a supposedly average poor family of workers; their ancestors were rich and magical but all the money and, apparently, all the magic had dried up. To get money for her family, Jenny went into service as a maid from the time she was twelve; by fifteen, she was working for a rich man named Albert Dubois. He was from a respected magical family but also worked as a banker rather than being a rich idiot with no day job, putting him on the edge of both societies even if nobody said it to his face. He knew or suspected that he'd be singled out as a target when a Grail War started up, though, but he did have a wish, too. So how to enter without entering? Obviously, make one of your servants do it. He had an idea of Jenny's family history, so she was a logical choice; she went along with it because... well, what other choice was there?
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Gender: Female
Approximate apparent age: Somewhere in her 30s
Personality: Archer is everything one would expect of a leader of fierce warriors. She's strong, fearless, and cares greatly for the women under her command. She's also compassionate; she treats every amazon like her sister, and will go to great lengths to keep them safe from harm. Like attacking the capitol city of a powerful nation, for example. This is pretty much the only thing that can really set her off! Archer is a true Mother to her Girls. She's prideful but not to the point where she boasts about her combat prowess, led her followers with a stern hand, and generally had a good head on her shoulders. She's capable of kindness, and isn't one whose temper can be set off at the drop of a hat.
... All of this applies only when she's in female company, however. She has a great contempt to anyone of the male gender, a trait common among amazons. Her opinion of men had started to change, once upon a time, but it was soured again almost instantly by the actions of one huge jerkface as mentioned below. She treats men as far inferior to those of her own gender; to Archer, they're no better than dogs.
Class: Archer
Fighting Style: Focuses mostly on her bow, though as the leader of a race of warriors, she is able to wield other weapons as well. Focuses more on face-to-face fighting rather than stealth.
Attitude towards the Holy Grail War: Neutral. Her main focus is to protect her Master.
Noble Phantasm:
Belt of Ares - With it, all her physical stats are boosted up one rank.
Call to Arms - Can summon reinforcement Amazons. These Amazons are significantly weaker than Archer, and any who are destroyed in battle will not reappear until the next time she uses this Noble Phantasm.
Angst-filled AU historical backstory: Hippolyta's backstory is more or less the same as her mythological background. She was the leader of the Amazons, a race of all-female warriors. She was visited by the hero Heracles, who needed to retrieve her belt for the daughter of King Eurystheus, as the ninth task in his fabled Ten Labors. Despite him being a man, Hippolyta was impressed with his strength and skill, and agreed to hand the belt over. Things would have ended peacefully, but Theseus, one of Heracles' companions, thought it would be a smart idea to capture one of Hippolyta's fellow amazons, a woman named Antiope. This was actually a Very Bad Idea, and the amazons quickly attacked. Heracles and his companions were able to flee, but the amazons tracked them down, eventually attacking the city of Athens itself. This was a Very Bad Idea on the Amazons' part, and most of them died in the battle, including Antiope and Hippolyta herself. However, in an attempt to bring her some peace before she died, her surviving warriors did not tell her of Antiope's death, and so she passed on with the fake knowledge that she was able to give her life for another's safety.
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But who am I to stop you? Go join
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no subject
Gender: Male
Apparent Age: Vague 20s.
Personality
Harewell has been isolated for a long span of time and as a result, is poorly socialized even for a vampire. He's spent the past sixty odd years using his telepathy to spy on the townspeople (and inciting them into spates of unwholesome activity), so he's been able to keep up with the current trends well enough, but he's unhappy about missing out on the hands-on part of spreading chaos and horror. He was a pretty sick person even before his transformation, and the solitary confinement hasn't helped.
All those years of spying have given him a keen insight into the human mind, and he loves manipulating people into performing dreadful acts (mostly murder, god does he fucking love murder) upon each other almost as much as he loves to commit said acts himself.
He's far too confident in his powers, and tends to ignore the possibility of any danger that he can't see coming. This is probably going to get him killed one day. He'll claim that his fear of further boredom outweighs his fear of dying, but that's a lie. When the chips are down, he'll do anything to avoid a true death.
Family: While he is from a magus line, it's not particularly top quality and he didn't inherit the crest before dying. A great niece or nephew likely has it by now.
Skillz yo: He has a limited mind reading/suggestion ability that works by oozing into the subconscious and enhancing or suppressing existing impulses. It's easier to ignore if a target knows that their reactions are unnatural, so he tries to keep it subtle.
Aside from that, he's way more physically capable than a regular human, and he can boost that with Reinforcement.
Backstory: A vampire created just before fourth grail war. Harwell was meant to be a minion of his master, but murdered him during a distracting battle and swiped his Servant, Nimue. When Hamlin started clearing the field, he commanded Nimue to seal him underground to avoid the extermination that took down most of his compatriots. He's survived in her prison by using his powers to lure hapless vagrants through the one way seal, and at last managed to store up enough power to slip through it last year.
no subject
Gender Male
Approximate apparent age Sixties, around
Personality The fairy tales that Koschei appeared in always concluded with his inevitable defeat. Beyond love, he lusted after women and whenever he kidnapped them, a hero would come to his doorstep, lose, find the trick behind his immortality, and return to finally defeat him. This has been a near constant pattern in Koschei's life and oddly enough, he enjoys the struggle. So much that he continued it over and over again over the course of his life. Of course, the trick for him was to find a way to keep his life without permanently dying, but once he secured it, he could indulge as long as he wanted.
Admittedly, for someone like Koschei who has lived forever, he lusts after women, but he easily grows tired of him. The act of kidnapping them didn't have much value, but being able to create larger-than-life tasks and plan out scenarios revolving around the sole purpose of dicking around with as many people as he possibly can is a lasting entertainment. There are times where he wants to win, of course, and his mission for all these years has simply been to win. This goal is always hindered once someone spills the beans about Koschei's secret for immortality, but nevertheless, the fun has never quite ended.
Koschei is completely void of empathy towards anybody. He lives to fulfill his own goals and own desires and how that may conflict with others doesn't even enter his mind. However, while generally good-spirited, lewd, and certainly overbearing, he can grow serious when someone is genuinely close to truly ending his life. He sees that level of persistence almost as a personal attack to him for trying to end his great fun. While it never has happened before since a hero hasn't pursued him after reuniting with his wife/lover, Koschei can become more vicious and brutal with his tactics to somebody that hounds him down. Conversely, though, he will show rare moments of pity when someone performs a good deed towards him. Not that he wouldn't still be willing to steal the guy's wife.
Class Caster
Fighting Style Koschei, despite being a Caster, doesn't mind fighting people directly. Back when he was alive, Koschei mostly fought through physical means with a sword and steed than he did purely with magic. He doesn't mind doing the same here, but at the same time, he's aware of his weaknesses against the other classes as a Caster. His tactics will mostly be limited to hit and run. When ordered not to fight directly, though, Koschei employs crystal golems or uses his magic to manipulate weather. The theme of most of his magic seems to center around crystals.
Attitude towards the Holy Grail War He would like to enjoy it as long as he can and come out on top. Once he obtains the Holy Grail War, though, he would simply wish to remain immortal to continue his old life in the 1930's.
Status Strength: C
Endurance: D+
Agility: C
Mana: A
Luck: D
Noble Phantasm:
Treasure of Buyan, A+: The secret to Koschei's immortality is inside this iron chest. It contains his soul which is held inside a needle that is inside an egg. The egg is inside a duck which is inside a hare that the chest hides. When found, they will all try to escape as quickly as possible. When the needle is destroyed, Koschei's life is also extinguished.
Class Skills
Item Creation: B
Territory Creation: A
Personal Skills
The Deathless, A: Koschei will not be killed by conventional means. Attacking him directly or sealing him may stop him, but he will not die. As long as his Noble Phantasm, Treasure of Buyan, is still active, Koschei remains immortal. In addition, he can regenerate any fatal wounds or lost limbs.
Witchcraft: B
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The Servant
Gender: Male
Apparent Age: 30
Class: Soldier
Personality: Sigmund has a reserved, sorrowful disposition much of the time. His only remaining duty is to to the prophesied son he did not live to meet. As one who held his family and their fortunes above all, Sigmund's only wish for the Holy Grail is to prolong his original life for one year, to bless his son's birth.
Fighting Style: Standing near the summit of Norse mythology, Sigmund has mastered every weapon he encountered in life. Of them all, a blessed, unnamed shield and Gram are those he depends upon most.
At any time, Sigmund can assume the form of a giant wolf or wolf-man. He enjoys an increase in all physical parameters, but cannot activate Gram as a Noble Phantasm. He slowly loses his intelligence over the course of an hour, at which time he becomes akin to a Berserker-class Servant under Mad Enhancement. He gains even greater powers, but loses all control of his impulses.
Stats: (Wolf) [Mad Wolf]
ST - C(B+)[A+]
AG - D(C)[B]
EN - C(B)(B+)
MA - E(D)[C]
LK - D(C)[B]
NP - A[(B)]
Noble Phantasms
Gram, The Sword of Supremacy
Rank: A
Range: Anti-personnel
The magical sword Gram was blessed by Odin with great power and fortune. To the wielder, it bestows a great martial power, and a swing made with all of one's might will vaporize armor as though it were flesh. Sigmund has a degraded version of the sword that he carried throughout his life; the sword reforged by his son also carries the trait of Dragon Slayer.
Lupine Lunacy
Rank: B
Range: Self
Unlike most people with the affliction, Sigmund's lycanthropy is double-layered, coming from two sources he met in his life. It allows him to turn into a wolf or wolf-man at any time, but his intelligence begins to fade as night falls. If he spends an hour in this form at night, he will suddenly unleash a howl that can kill at close range, and he will remain in this form until falling asleep at dawn.
Backstory: Sigmund had always been a placeholder for his son, Sigurd. When he drew Gram from the tree, he was presented with a prophecy: that he would be a great hero, but that his son would surpass him in all things wielding the same blade. Sigmund thought little of this prophecy at the time.
Three months after the wedding, Sigmund and his father and nine brothers were tricked and captured by his sister's husband. Each one was eaten by the husband's shape-shifting mother in the form of a wolf. Sigmund managed to kill the wolf even in chains, by biting her tongue off.
Escaping his imprisonment with his sister, Sigmund fathered a son/nephew with her. He began to win great fortunes and lead an army. When his son came of age, Sigmund presented him with Gram. The boy could not hold it.
Worried, Sigmund continued to fight, fathering two more sons in the meantime. Neither boy mastered the blade, great warriors though they were.
Sigmund had only married his second wife for half a year when he was forced to fight a great battle. In that battle, he met Odin in disguise. The old man taunted Sigmund with riddles about his sword and his son, but Sigmund realized too late, after using all of his weapons but Gram, that his greatest opponent, who he fought for the better part of a day, was Odin.
Gram met Gungnir, and shattered. Odin mortally wounded Sigmund, and told him that Hiordis was pregnant.
Sigmund rode for a day and a night to his keep, clutching the bag holding Gram's fragments to his wounded belly. Kicking down his own gate, he screamed that his wife was pregnant and to keep the fragments safe for his son, then died.
Master
Gender: Male
Age: 24
Personality: Enrico doesn’t actually enjoy being a mafia man. Not truly. His body just convinces him that he does due to the effects of Agonist Syndrome, which amplify his emotions for the worse. He tries to put up a happy, sometimes professional façade, but he can’t help but crack the odd smile on the job now and then, a fact he completely, utterly hates. Not because of compassion. While hardly cruel, Enrico didn’t have much in the way of good before his disease, either. It’s because it is a constant reminder that his condition is getting worse, and he is one step closer to death. Despite suffering from the sporadic attack, he is exceptional in his duties, simply because they often result in his life hanging on the line.
Due to this, he is always in a struggle between taking the efficient way out of things, or prolonging them just a little longer, to enjoy the satisfaction of seeing his prey suffer. The former typically wins, due to his constant denial of his condition. He is very much a magecraft user, rather than a magus, and being part of the mafia, he has extensive knowledge of firearms of the time, as well as some of the less savory tactics they would take part in.
There really isn’t a specific reason for why Enrico has such a strong will to live. He certainly isn’t religious, so perhaps the prospect of complete nothingness has a part in it. Perhaps it’s simply the desire to not have humanity continue on without him. It’s uncertain, in no small part because Henry isn’t sure himself. Every order he follows, every training he undertakes, is always with the single purpose of allowing him to see another day in which he can be cured of his disease.
This is not to say he doesn’t enjoy things. The Syndrome has twisted his mind, plunging a large part of it into non-reality, but there still remains some of his actual self in there. He quite enjoys movies, and goes to the theater whenever things are calm enough to not be recognized. Despite the mafia’s product of choice, Henry rarely touches the drink (although when you carry his type of company, you can rarely be picky), favoring coffee to a much greater degree. He is not above flirting, but he never really means it. Too much wasted time if he did, he figures.
His particular condition allows him to think things through quickly, but not necessarily better. The end result is the same, usually resulting in about as much cleverness as you would expect from an upper-class criminal, but it takes him a lesser amount of time. Being a skill he can’t precisely ignore, he tries to consider it a natural part of himself, not thinking about how it’s a gift from his personal grim reaper.
Backstory: Enrico was born straight into a mafia family. Not even close to the boss, mind, but good enough to become a made man. His family, despite being deeply ingrained in the world of organized crime, did not have any more trouble than you would expect from one at the time. He never really resented having to become a criminal. For him, it was simply the only world there was, and this attitude towards life resulted in an amicable relationship with his father, who still lives to this day (albeit far away, having had to move after too many jobs and too little influence). Sadly, conditions stopped Enrico from really living up to his full potential. Suffering from Agonist Syndrome in his brain at an early age, he wouldn’t have lasted into his fifteenth birthday if he hadn’t discovered his proficiency with magecraft.
As of said point in time, the condition hadn’t been given a proper name, being a long way from being prevalent. It single-handedly shaped Enrico’s process in magecraft, forcing him to focus on how it can influence human biology. In a desperate race to survive, he became proficient in healing and puppet magecraft, intending to use them to cure himself. It failed. Healing magecraft could do no more than slow down the deterioration, and transferring his afflicted brain onto constructs would serve no purpose. Ironically enough, the disease itself helped his proficiency. Most Agonist Syndrome victims awaken to supernatural powers, yet Henry’s is quite mundane in comparison. True to the typical effects of the illness, the afflicted body part, his brain, went through constant regeneration, eventually reaching the point where it enjoyed twice the synapse connections one usually does. This came at a heavy cost. Halfway through his nineteenth year, Henry went through the necrosis most patients suffer due to this disease, entering a coma for two months.
He excelled at school, but didn’t finish it, figuring he could use his time on better things. Eventually becoming a caporegime. At this point, being in his position and having his degree of magical ability, it was a given that he would become informed of the War. At first hesitant, he quickly figured that he would die anyways if he didn’t participate. After making preparations for an entire year, he requested permission to enter at the last second, treating it much like any favor an underling would ask of his capo crimini.
Perhaps stunting his professional progress, Enrico is rarely able to get angry. Due to his constant fight against his chaotic emotions, he hasn’t quite grown to ignore them, but rather, trained himself to look at annoyances like a diversion.
Degree of Magical Family Heritage: Enrico’s family runs with a decent number of magic circuits, but he’s the first one to be actually made aware of magecraft, discovering it out of sheer survival instinct. Were it not for his conditions, he could have very well eventually joined the Association, or more likely, receive a Sealing Designation, but as it is, he has no interest in it beyond how long it can keep him alive.
Competence as a Magus: Again, Enrico has a good deal of natural magic circuits: 22, each capable of handling 100 units of prana. Half of those are used at all times, even during sleep (which takes use of an additional circuit to force his mind to maintain the process), with the single purpose of keeping his body up and running. Not knowing much in the way of real offensive magecraft, the rest of them are typically used on his puppets. All of them are able to be controlled in a mindless state (one per circuit), or fully under his command, but only one at a time. Enrico is more than capable of switching his mind through these, even after death, so long as his head remains intact. He is also capable of basic thaumaturgy, such as reinforcement and minor hypnosis towards people without magecraft. His elements are Earth and Water. He does not have a Mystic Code or a Thaumaturgical Crest.
Re: Master
Master
Gender: Male
Age: 28
Personality: Seth has a mild, personable demeanor most of the time. Unfortunately, his calm is easily broken by both despair and anger. At those times, he flips out, becoming spiteful and, rarely, violent.
He's been hounded by failure for his entire life, and it shows in his ardent refusal to hope in hopeful situations. His refusal to hope in hopeless situations is just logical, he thinks.
Seth a need for attachment that he'd never admit.
A businessman through and through, Seth always looks for the advantages in his current situation. He tries to understand the desires of the people around him, and constantly asks himself how he can profit from those desires. He can't escape feeling some genuine compassion for the people he sells to, though. These traits and a naturally quick wit kept him in work throughout his adult life, though he would always somehow ruin his station, usually by relying on the wrong person (even if that person was sometimes himself).
Magical Heritage: Seth is the younger child of a family in its sixth generation, and they never bothered to tell him about magic, as his older sister had already received a completed Thaumaturgical Crest. All attempts to give him up for adoption failed, so he was sent to a boarding school in America once he was old enough.
The Demines family specializes in familiars. Their ancestor disliked the commonly held rule that a familiar had to be several degrees weaker than the magus, and worked to overcome that barrier. The successive generations achieved a process of filling a familiar with the "shadow" of a magus's soul, allowing for the creation human familiars of equal power in a "partnership." His family's inherent brand of magic manifested itself in Seth's need to share his endeavors with another.
Competence as a magus: Seth is on the cusp of discovering magic on his own, but he has no knowledge at this time. He has 20 Magic Circuits, each holding 75 units of prana, and the abstract origin of "Sharing." Unbeknownst to his family, he would have been their ideal successor, capable at his peak of allowing two bodies to share one soul.
Backstory: Classically educated in a men's boarding school, Seth found it fairly easy to make friends. He excelled in academics and was average in sports, but his team-player attitude ensured he'd never been picked last, so to speak. His formative years were unmemorable beyond that, as he'd worked as an entrepreneur almost before he could vote.
In the next decade, Seth met with his family only once, when his older sister came to visit him in America. She'd told him to come and live in Highgate, and left him some money and a book in a safety deposit box, which she'd give him the account number for "when she knew it was time."
Seth did not live up to his promise to live in Highgate for several years, intending to become rich and happy in Boston. This endeavor failed, and as a last resort he returned to Highgate in 1928, trying to make the most of the remaining money in his account, and meeting with unexpected success.
Sadly, Seth's most recent business partner, Alex, began to betray him the day the stock market crashed. First in little ways, like lying about his profits, then in big ones, like accepting a business deal with the mafia and trying to leave his partner high and dry. Seth learned about the deal just in time and, in a fit of rage, killed Alex right in front of the mafia contact. With a bit of fast-talking, Seth convinced the mafioso that Alex would have eventually betrayed the him just as Alex had back-stabbed Seth. The made man allowed Seth to dispose of the body at the cemetery, and lent him the keys to a car and a safe house. Seth took Alex's cut of the profits from their last deal and the extra he'd been skimming on the side, and set out to the cemetery.
Servant
Gender: Female
Approximate Apparent Age: Mid-teens
Personality: Assassin is what happens when you crush someone’s psyche and give them a few thousand years to spend on top of it. Years look like minutes to her. To use a metaphor, it’s not unlike slowing down a movie so it reaches a hundred-hour duration. The good parts and bad parts both last a lot longer. Fortunately, Assassin is in a short period of good mood thanks to what she believes to be her last thought, a disposition which should hold for the rest of the War. This is a rare occurrence, as happiness for her typically only happens about 1% of the time.
She’s not nearly as crazy as her most famous moment would have you believe. She’s certainly been affected by her experiences, but as long as you leave God out of it, she’s actually pretty stable. At least in regards to her actions. There’s quite a bit of resentment at other people for shunning her the moment they saw her, which does manifest in some snark, but Assassin had the benefit of actually living through quite a bit of history, and is ironically more familiarized with modern life than many other Heroic Spirits. She’s still not very picky about food, due to reasons that are explained in her story.
Obviously, Assassin has never had the opportunity to live as a normal girl, and it isn’t even a possibility in her mind anymore. When the time you’ve lived makes everything seem so insignificant, the little things slip under the radar. Truth is, despite her outside demeanor, Assassin can be incredibly insightful. Having had quite a bit of time to think during her life, she could have very well made her living as a philosopher if it weren’t for her condition.
Killing is a bit of a complicated point with her. She doesn’t mind doing so, but not because of heartlessness. In her mind, killing is the reminder that her very essence, her origin, will always remain attached to her, and she can’t separate herself from the act that took away the only two people she ever truly cared about. The reason she doesn’t mind is because she considers an existence linked to it her punishment, one that has been bestowed by God, and thus, cannot be renounced.
History: Assassin is the firstborn, the very first human in the world to be born of another. She is also the first to have committed a murder. Her younger years weren’t precisely a barrel of fun. Humanity had just been casted away from Eden, so it was pretty much just trying to grow fruit from sub-par soil, day after day. Indeed, she could have just resorted to her brother’s methods and started to hunt, but Cain always held a bit of hesitation at driving a blade against another living thing.
In truth, Cain always held some resentment against her parents. As a farmer, she took the brunt of their decision, seeing arid deserts and meager crops for the majority of her life, with nothing but stories about the lush green paradise with no sin she could have lived in had they not eaten of the apple. Perhaps it was this idealization that led to her holding God in higher regard than them. Cain knew that God must have known about her true feelings of dissatisfaction, but she figured that things would remain okay if she didn’t act on them. Her brother, Abel, proved to be the exception to this. As someone who had no part in deciding their living conditions, Cain always held the company of her brother in high regard. It could be said that he was the thing she valued most in the entire world, beyond her own devotion. You don’t grow attached to a lot of stuff when you’re usually too busy with work to even think about anything else.
But she didn’t act on her hate. Not for some time. More than a decade passed, and nothing that could truly infuriate Cain ever came up. This being the beginning of humanity, she had taken to work at an extremely young age, and had kept herself occupied with such ever since. To her, the announcement that God was asking for tribute was the BC equivalent of a schoolgirl entering a singing contest. After spending months trying to actually grow something good out of little more than dust, she presented her work. God didn’t like it. He very much favored Abel’s sacrifice of his firstborn sheep.
She was the one who put work into her offering, she thought. Was the sacrifice of others valued over one’s own work? If so, she could sacrifice something far more valuable to her than a mere sheep. She could give to God the thing she valued the most in the entire world. At the time, the concept of murder wasn’t even a thing. What is now a very tempting prospect for a certain kind of person took Cain a whole month to think up. God’s reaction was unexpected. The moment Cain saw it, she immediately took to hiding from him.
Obviously, the ruse was short-lived. God asked Cain where Abel was and, even though she was perfectly aware he knew, in His omniscience, the sheer guilt stopped her from answering truthfully. Cain had talked to God many times before, being one of four humans in the entire world, but this was the first time it hadn’t been on friendly terms. She was punished to live an eternal life, haunted by her actions.
She didn’t argue it. Despite having the imagination to invent entirely new concepts, the thought of going against His will didn’t even cross her mind. She did, however, plead to not be killed herself, and was thus punished with not only the inability to age, but what amounted to a big neon sign warning everyone that killing her was a very bad idea. Cain could have very well taken her own life, but she never attempted so. Not because of sin, no. She doubted Heaven would ever be a possibility for her ever again. Instead, she wanted to make God’s punishment count for something. If His will is for her to live in suffering, then she damn well will. That decision accounted for thousands of years wandering the desert, countless sessions of despair, and very, very rarely talking to anyone. Staying alive was a struggle, as she was stripped of her ability to grow her own food, and few were willing to give any to her, but she was determined to live until God told her it was over. Cain never attempted to cover up her mark, which resulted in everyone knowing they were looking at the first murderer at first sight.
It’s unknown just how long Cain lived. Whether you call it fortune or bad luck, she didn’t see a lethal accident until thousands of years after receiving her curse, having the roof of a building fall upon her. Cain lived for twenty seconds after figuring out what was happening. During the first ten she considered this just another event born of her bad luck. The next five were spent thinking if this was caused by her Lord. The next four considered this a sign that he had been satisfied with her suffering. By the last second, her mental functions had died enough to stop her from remembering her thought at the time.
It wasn’t long until she was summoned by the Grail, yet even then, she couldn’t figure out a reason for it doing so, not having a wish of her own.
Fighting Style: Cain is pretty much the worst Assassin ever if you judge her with a traditional one as the standard. Unlike most, she never actually trained for her role as one. Indeed, before her only murder, she was a crop farmer, and the curse bestowed upon her resulted in her having little motivation to train her skills. While her Presence Concealment helps diminish the shortcomings of this fact, she is an exceptionally bad physical fighter, just a little above Caster (not this War’s Caster, who’s actually better than her). She’s still more powerful than most humans, but in direct combat, she’s unlikely to be able to kill them.
She does, however, have the mindset required for one. Cain does not show off more of her skills than she needs to, having long since figured that showing off brings nothing but trouble. She relies on backstabbing targets with her nameless knife. Naturally, not being a Noble Phantasm, it’s not enough to kill Servants. She is not nearly as impulsive as she used to be; thousands of years of wandering deserts are a pretty good incentive to change your ways. She still doesn’t like to be one-upped, though, and she’s much more likely to resort to Noble Phantasms if her opponent uses their own. Jealousy forms a big part of Cain’s personality, as it tends to show that someone is more deserving of what she considers her true father’s love.
Stats:
STR – D
END – A+
AGI – A
MAG – E
LUC – D
NP – A
Skills:
Natural Body (B): Cain does not age, due to her curse. Given her status as a Servant, this skill has little effect on her anymore.
Presence Concealment (A): Cain cannot disappear completely, but she will emit absolutely no prana signatures, and people will be naturally inclined to ignore her presence, which grants her protection in crowds and bad weather. This skill disappears the moment she attacks.
Noble Phantasms:
Mark of Cain (B)
Origin of Murder – Window to the Record (A+)
Re: Servant